


we can turn the world to gold

by atlantisairlock



Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Normal Life, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Backstory, Canonical Child Abuse, Character Study, Child Neglect, Childhood Friends, Dreamsharing, F/M, Male Friendship, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 22:31:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11587506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlantisairlock/pseuds/atlantisairlock
Summary: The first time Wolfgang dreams, he's seven years old & doesn't yet understand that his life isn't a normal one.Soulmate AU where you see the life of your soul mate(s) from a first-person point of view when you dream at night.





	we can turn the world to gold

**Author's Note:**

> specially for [valkyriamorgenstern](http://valkyriamorgenstern.tumblr.com). 
> 
> notes: they're not sensates in this au & they aren't being threatened by any organisation which is why it's tagged normal life + in this au, recognising and 'just knowing' your soul mate is contingent upon dreaming of them for years on end - therefore creating some sort of a transcendental bond - which is why anton wants wolfgang to take the pills so they curb the dreaming and he won't recognise his soul mate/s even when he finally meets them + turned out more wolfgang-centric than expected but meh.
> 
> disclaimers: work of fiction, i know very little about airline procedures & ticket buying & flights from berlin to mumbai, suspend reality.
> 
> title from 'run away with me' by carly rae jepsen.

The first time Wolfgang dreams, he's seven years old and doesn't yet understand that his life isn't a normal one.

The dream is a vivid one, every sense heightened. The sun seems brighter than he ever sees it in Berlin, and there are plains stretching out before him further than the eye can see, and he can hear the laughter of children playing. He looks down at his hands and his skin is dark. 

He wakes up gasping, clutching his blanket to his chest and wondering for a moment where he is. 

It's his first dream.

It's not his last.

 

 

"I had a dream," he tells his father over breakfast, keeping his voice low so Anton doesn't fly into one of his rages.

He doesn't, but he still frowns and Wolfgang flinches back, then slowly, slowly relaxes when his father doesn't raise a hand to him. Instead, he places his fork down and turns to stare his son in the eye. "What did you dream of?"

Wolfgang hesitates, squirming in his seat, then recounts what he remembers with the limited vocabulary he knows. Anton nods slowly along to his words, his gaze going colder and colder, and Wolfgang trails to an end. "What does the dream mean, Papa?"

"Everyone dreams," Anton answers, quiet and flat. "You dream of the person you are meant to be with forever. Your soulmate. In your dreams you live as they are, and you see the way they live their lives. And eventually, when life leads them to you, you know." He doesn't give Wolfgang any time to respond before continuing. "It is dangerous. Too many people get caught up in what they see when they sleep at night. They talk of nothing but their soul mate. Live their whole lives focused on nothing but one other person - a stranger. Nothing but foolishness. There is more to you than who you are meant to spend your life with." He turns his glare back on Wolfgang, pushing his plate closer to his son. "We will see your uncle later today. He has created a type of medication - pills you take that stop you dreaming. Keep you focused on what is truly important. You will understand when you are older."

With that parting order, Anton gets up from the breakfast table and walks away, leaving Wolfgang staring at his breakfast with a sudden lack of desire to eat it. 

He has only been alive six years, conscious of what it really means to be even less. He doesn't yet understand what it means to be born into a family that thrives on crime, the complexities of existing. He just knows that East Berlin has a gloominess to it that aches in his bones. He knows his room is always cold, his house colder, even though his father keeps the heat running all the time. He knows the servants treat him with respect but not any real affection, and he knows that he wants more of his dream - that light, that laughter, that warmth and safety. Something - not this. Something different. 

There's no arguing with his father. But he wants to keep dreaming.

 

 

Anton puts him in the car and they drive to Sergei's mansion, no less imposing than their own. Sergei welcomes his brother and his nephew with little more than simmering suspicion. "This isn't a scheduled visit."

"He's started dreaming." Anton doesn't bother with pleasantries, just pushes Wolfgang forward with a sharp shove between his collarbones. "We need the medication."

Sergei raises his eyebrows, expression a perfect picture of amusement and understanding. He gestures perfunctorily to the couch, then disappears to the back, returning with two small boxes marked with symbols. "You know how to take the medication, of course. A smaller dose since he's younger. One pill a day will do, taken before bed. If he keeps dreaming, come back to me and we will talk about dosage."

His brother nods, takes the boxes and leaves. There is no goodbye, and Wolfgang doubts one is expected. He follows, back into the car, stomach turning over and over. Just before bed. He's already thinking, planning,  _hoping._ Will his father check on him every night, make sure he takes the pill? Or will he expect Wolfgang to follow his orders to the letter, as he always has? If he hides the pill under his tongue - spits it into the basin, later - 

He has to. He will find a way.

 

 

Just before bed that night, his father enters his room - a rare thing - and brusquely sets one chalky white pill and a glass of water on the nightstand, then leaves, clearly expecting nothing less of Wolfgang but to put the pill in his mouth and swallow. When he exists, Wolfgang's heart is going a hundred miles an hour, frozen in his bed, just waiting - making sure Anton is gone,  _gone,_ before he picks up the pill, walks slowly into the bathroom, and flushes it down the toilet. Just like that, it's gone.

He has his mind to himself for the night, and he feels guilty, feels terrified, feels excited, this is what he  _wants._

He dreams again. 

But this time - it's different. This time there are no plains, no laughing children. He sees - a court? A room? A large room, mats on the floor, hears grunts and yells and the soft drift of advice. Someone comes into view, wearing a set of clothes, all white with a coloured belt, something he doesn't recognise. He knows, instinctively, that this is different. This is not what he dreamt of last night.

But that doesn't make sense. Isn't he meant to dream of his soul mate, singular? How can they possibly be in two places at once? 

And then the scene changes again. He feels dizzy, feels as if he's falling, and then - he's somewhere else, again. A flat. It's warm. Spacious. Sunlight streaming in through the windows. A little girl in front of him. And then - music, he's on a balcony, people dancing and singing on the road below. And then - it's colder now, he can see trees outside, hear birds twittering, snow on the ground. And then - a man, he looks like Anton but his eyes are warmer, his uniform marks him out to be a policeman, his shoulders pulled back, his smile proud. And then - and then - 

He switches and switches and switches, there's just so much, almost too much, and just before he wakes up, Wolfgang switches one more time - he's standing in the door of a restaurant, the air is so warm, humid, the scent of it sharp and syrupy, he can almost taste it on his tongue, and he's  _happy_ - 

When he wakes up he's crying, but not out of grief. 

 

 

He keeps dreaming. Keeps his mouth shut. The pills remain uneaten, and he sees so much every night. He doesn't always see everything - more precisely, he doesn't always see all  _seven._ He's learned to count them, separate them, know where he is, which life he's seeing. It's the only logical explanation he can think of, after all. Seven lives, seven soul mates. It warms him from inside out - to know that, no matter what, no matter where his life takes him, how hard it is to live under his father's roof - there are seven people in this world who are meant for him and him alone. He will find them, one day, and he will  _know._

Under the guise of study he does careful research in Anton's library. He starts keeping a diary, well-hidden under the mattress on his bed. In messy childish handwriting he numbers the lives. The very first one, the boy in - Africa, he thinks, or Australia maybe, which part exactly he's not sure, somewhere that hasn't yet been touched by the world outside? The girl who spends half her life sparring, a born martial artist. Another - the one in the flat - a boy, a girl? He can't be certain, not yet. The boy on the balcony, Wolfgang thinks that's Spain. He's least sure about the next girl, the one who lives in a country where it snows but he's not sure how much. The boy whose - father, yes, is a policeman. And the one he dreams of the most, the girl in the restaurant. Her life appears the most when he sleeps. He thinks he can draw the restaurant from memory, now. He doesn't even need to close his eyes to recall the heat of the air, the way it clings to his skin, the sweat beading on his throat. 

From what he's dreamed he doubts any of them live in Berlin. Maybe the one in the flat, but he thinks of that possibility and it just feels wrong. It means they are all so far away, despite the fact that they feel so close at night, and he wonders how - when - they'll ever meet. Hopes it'll be sooner rather than later.

He says a little prayer before he sleeps, asks them to find a way to come to Berlin - come to him. Sooner, rather than later.

 

 

Wolfgang is ten years old when 1) Anton teaches him how to shoot a gun 2) Sergei teaches him how to pick a lock and 3) he meets Felix.

It's a small matter of a playground brawl. He comes out of it with a black eye, Felix with a few bruises. They sit in the principal's office and wait for their parents to come down and pick them up. Wolfgang peeks at Felix from behind the ice pack the nurse made him hold to his face, and nods in respect to a fair, firm fighter. Felix grins and winks back.

Felix is not his soul mate - any of them. Wolfgang  _knows._ But he could be a friend, and Wolfgang doesn't have many of those. By the time their parents arrive in the principal's office, they're talking ten to the dozen about the newest action movie in cinemas. When Wolfgang goes home Anton yells at him for wasting his time on nothing more than a stupid, childish fight, berates him for being a poor fighter and getting injured, but the next day he goes back to school and Felix moves his table so it's right beside Wolfgang's and starts to dissect a classic film his mother rented the week prior. Wolfgang relaxes into his seat and listens, because something good has come out of this whole affair and he wants to hang on to it, keep it close.

 

 

Felix sneaks into his room for a sleepover a few years into their friendship, manages to scale the two storeys up the wall and through Wolfgang's window. They lie on the floor and Felix whispers about the  _amazing_ dream he had the night before.

"My soul mate likes birds," Felix giggles in the darkness. "I was looking through binoculars all of last night, into the trees. It was amazing. How about you? What does your soulmate do?"

Wolfgang swallows hard, clenching and unclenching his fist, wondering what he should say - but he trusts Felix, and he's still too young to want to hide, so he tells the truth. "I don't think I just have one."

Felix makes an impressed noise. "Cool! How many lives do you dream of?"

"Seven, I think. I counted."

"Wow..." He sounds awestruck and it eases some of the fear in Wolfgang's heart. "What are they all like? Are they all really different? Tell me, tell me!"

Wolfgang hasn't been able to tell - well, anyone about his soul mates, his dreams. Felix is his only friend and his entire family thinks he's taking his pills. It's so wonderful, so welcome, to finally be able to share. He retrieves his diaries from deep inside his closet - he's had so many dreams, he finally wised up and got separate journals for each soul mate and the space under his mattress is no longer suitable - and starts talking Felix through his dreams, meticulously recorded day after day. Felix listens attentively, eyes wide.

"I like this one," he eventually whispers, patting the diary headlined  _RESTAURANT GIRL._ "Sounds  _amazing._ They all do, but her life is cool. It's the most  _colourful!_ So pretty."

Wolfgang smiles happily, resting his head on his hands. "That's my favourite too. I dream about her the most."

"You're lucky to have seven, Wolfgang." Felix says seriously, and Wolfgang nods. "I know."

 

 

Ten years after his first dream Anton and Sergei sit down at the breakfast table with Wolfgang and tell him he has a job.

"Sergei has some official businesses," Anton says, the implication of not-so-official ones clear. "You will be a locksmith. In a few years - if you can prove to us that you are a useful asset - we will allow you to work on the real family business with us. For now you will earn your keep."

And that couldn't be further from what he wants. Wolfgang wants to study, to learn. Seventeen years have passed and he hasn't met any of his soul mates yet so he wants to take things into his own hands. He wants to get a degree, a job, that will let him explore beyond the boundaries of Berlin, that will help him find who he is meant to be with. He doesn't want to work for his uncle and he doesn't want his ultimate goal to simply be taking the reins of organised crime. He wants so much more than that.

But he knows better than to argue. He can think. He can plan. He has been flushing pills down the drain for years. He can do that again, only on a bigger scale this time. 

So instead he simply nods and asks them for a favour. "Can Felix get a job as well?"

The rest can wait.

 

 

That night he dreams of his restaurant girl's life again. It is a welcome thing. He sees her bedroom - he can draw that from memory too, now - and at first it seems like it's always been, and then he looks down at her desk and he sees it. There's a notebook on the desk, open, and in clear, neat handwriting:  _BERLIN BOY, STAY STRONG._

His eyes fly open and he's awake again, stolen away from the life, the dream. He's sweating. 

_BERLIN BOY, STAY STRONG._

Berlin boy.

 _Berlin_ boy?

Him? 

It has to be him. Doesn't it? 

But how? How could she possibly - send a message to him? How could she - 

Wolfgang calls Felix, and explains it all in a rush, breathless, and in response Felix laughs, but it's not a cruel laugh. "She is your soul mate, my friend. She has been dreaming your life as you have been dreaming of hers. She must know - how hard it has been for you."

He never thought about that. He knew, rationally, but it never really dawned on him until Felix says it. She has had to dream of such painful things. She has had to see Anton's hands on him, Sergei's disapproval, the chill of his home. He wishes he could have spared her that. Wishes he could have spared them all.

But still - the other matter. "How could she send a message to me?"

"You are dreaming of her life. She merely has had to incorporate that message into her life," Felix answers. "My guess is that she has sat at her desk and stared at that message she wrote hoping that you would dream that part of her life. And now you have." 

It warms Wolfgang, head to toe, the idea that his soul mate, who doesn't know him, yet, not really - would write that down and stare down at it and hope, just hope, it would give him the strength he needs.

It does. He is grateful for it. 

He resolves. She will be the first one he finds, or tries to.

 

 

Felix gets hired as a driver, ostensibly taking Wolfgang to his locksmithing jobs with the potential of becoming a getaway driver in a couple of years. To his surprise, Anton pays Wolfgang a proper salary every month, tells Wolfgang frankly that he doesn't want his son mooching off him any more. 

"You get a room in my house, that is all," Anton says coldly. "Prove to me that you can be useful and then we can negotiate."

Wolfgang grits his teeth, goes out with Felix for his meals, and they start planning. The money comes in slow but it comes in steady and Felix's fingers are light so he takes what he can from people who'll never notice it's gone. They squirrel it away, hide it away from prying eyes. Wolfgang keeps his share in a sturdy box with a combination lock beside his dream diaries, now ragged & well-worn from years of documenting his dreams.

Just as things have changed for him, things have changed for his soul mates. The African boy has been working for a while now, even longer than Wolfgang has - driving a bus, ferrying passengers. When Wolfgang dreams of that life sometimes he has a steering wheel in his hands, looking out at everything before him and he wonders if that's how Felix feels when he's behind the wheel. The martial artist - a South Korean girl, proficient now in more disciplines than he can count, close to her mother and protective of her brother. The girl who has had to fight against the people who should love her the most in order to be who she truly is - Wolfgang has been dreaming of her as she transitions and he is so fiercely proud, so happy for her. The Spanish boy is keeping up with his studies but spends most of his free time making speeches in front of the mirror, playing at acting. He still hasn't figured out where the girl-in-the-snowy-country lives, but he's happy for her - she seems to be the happiest of all his seven, happier than himself certainly, with a man she loves and who loves her back. The boy whose father is a policeman is spends his days training, studying, aiming for the police academy, following in his father's footsteps. And of course, his restaurant girl. He's figured out by now that she lives in India, though he isn't sure exactly where. He doesn't just dream her life. Sometimes, he can  _feel_ how she feels, somehow. She dances because she craves the feeling of being free - she wants nothing more than to go to university and study chemistry. He wakes up feeling overwhelmed with joy the night he dreams of holding an acceptance letter in his hands. 

They are all still strangers, technically, but Wolfgang feels like he's known them his whole life, feels closer to them than to his own family. He already loves them all. He just needs to seek them out.

 

 

When Wolfgang is twenty-three Anton and Sergei finally call him in and tell him he's ready.

Wolfgang leaves that short meeting and immediately goes to the little flat Felix has moved into. "We have to leave."

"I know," Felix answers shortly. He's already bustling around his living room packing up what little he has. "Now or never. We get any further into the organisation - the real part of it - and we risk everything when we run." He points at the tiny kitchen. "One of the ceiling boards has a paint splotch on it. Get on the counter and get it open, my share of the money is in it. Go home, get yours, get everything you want, come back here and we leave in twenty-four hours." 

Wolfgang's heart pounds. "Where are we going?"

Felix meets his eyes, steady and assured even in his indecision. "I don't know yet. We'll figure it out. We just have to go."

 _Before they smell a rat_ is implied in Felix's words. Wolfgang steps into the kitchen, does as he's asked and disappears out of the door once he's done. There isn't much of his own to park - Anton frowned upon spoiling his son so all Wolfgang really needs to bring along is essentials. Clothes, toiletries, his cellphone and laptop, all the money he has, his dream diaries. He can't leave those behind, no matter what. 

When he closes his front door behind him, he knows he's not coming back.

 

 

He sleeps on Felix's couch that night - and he dreams.

It's his restaurant girl's life again. He's back in her bedroom. He's in front of her desk. Wolfgang looks down at the desk, and - 

there are words again, but this time it's not something motivational, this time it's - 

_CHHATRAPATI SHIVAJI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT LUFTHANSA 0630_

_-_ instructions.

A place. A time. An airline. 

Wolfgang's eyes fly open. 

She's given him and Felix their  _where._

How did she figure out what they're trying to do? Wolfgang's mind whirls with the impossibility of it, but he's already stumbling over to his laptop and opening up his internet browser. He's not surprised to see that there's a 6.30AM flight from SXF to BOM on the Lufthansa airline that has a couple of seats left. The tickets will fairly wipe him and Felix out but it's all he has. 

Twenty minutes later he's got two tickets to Mumbai and he's shaking Felix awake. "We have a destination. But we have to head to the airport in one hour if we want to make our flight. Get up and let's eat."

Felix, still a little hazy with sleep but eyes bright nevertheless, grins. "Let's go."

 

 

They're both on edge from the point they get in Felix's car and start driving, up till the point when they're boarding the plane, terrified that Anton or Sergei or another one of the outfit will suddenly step out and grab them and take them back. It isn't until the plane is cruising in the air that Wolfgang can finally stop trembling. 

They're going to make it.

They  _are._

"Felix," Wolfgang exhales shakily, and Felix turns to him, and that's when the stewardess comes down the aisle and smiles at them and says  _drinks, gentlemen?_ and then she freezes. Beside Wolfgang, Felix freezes too. 

And that's the first time - the very first - that Wolfgang sees soul mates meeting right before his eyes. He sees it in every inch of Felix's face, the way his whole body goes rigid, the way his eyes just go  _warm,_ somehow. The stewardess is staring at Felix like she's just been shot. There's silence between them for a solid minute before Wolfgang decides he should do something. Taking Felix's wrist he basically manoeuvres his friend's hand into the stewardess'. "Ma'am, this is Felix. Your soul mate. I think."

"Hi," Felix says dumbly, gaze not leaving hers.

"Vicky, what are you doing, move along, you're blocking the way," snaps another stewardess from across the aisle, obviously directed at Felix's soul mate.

"I think she's just found her soul mate, ma'am," says the middle-aged man sitting beside Felix and Wolfgang in the middle row, who's been similarly observing the scene with amusement. The other stewardess' expression changes immediately to delighted surprise, and a little while later there's applause from the whole crew and some of the plane. Apparently-Vicky blushes and gives Felix her number and promises to come back to talk later on. 

It's another long while before Felix finally exhales in a rush. _"Damn."_

"I'm going to tease you about this for the rest of your life," Wolfgang informs him.

"Dick," Felix answers, but he doesn't stop smiling for the rest of the flight, and Wolfgang's heart speeds up whenever he sees Vicky come back down the aisle and exchange quick waves with Felix. Will it be like that when he finally meets  _her?_ He's been dreaming of them - dreaming of her, especially - for practically his entire life, loved her practically his entire life, and he knows she won't let him down - she couldn't possibly, she's his soul mate after all - but he's so terrified. She will have seen so much that he wouldn't wish on anything else. Dreamed his life, a life he didn't want to live. He hopes she loves him too, already, and he's so afraid he won't live up to everything she wants. Her life - what he's dreamed of it - has always been so bright, with a father and mother and sister who love her, and so much potential in her. She is light personified, and Wolfgang... he's not sure what he is. He's not sure if he'll be enough. 

With just two hours left in their flight, Felix nudges him. "You're thinking too loud. Stop worrying. It'll be fine."

"I'm not worrying," Wolfgang replies, to Felix's disbelieving snort. "She'll love you. You know that. Trust me."

And Wolfgang wants to - can see the obvious affection between Felix and Vicky already - but the house he has lived in, the father he's had - just makes it so hard.

He wonders if she'll be at the airport to pick him up, wonders if he'll search through the crowd and rest his eyes on her, and like they all say,  _just know._ He hopes so.

 

 

It's a long flight. They reach Mumbai eleven hours later and it's already night-time, and Wolfgang feels exhausted and achy when he gets his luggage off the belt. It's another hour before they finally leave the arrival hall and step into the public area of the airport. They're standing there with what little luggage they have, feeling confused and lost in a country that isn't their own, that they've never been to, not sure what to do next.

And then Wolfgang sees  _her._

And he  _knows._

Her eyes meet his and they widen and then suddenly his entire world has narrowed into one point, just her. The crowd seems to disappear before him as he cuts a path through the swarm of people to get to her. He's only dimly aware of Felix following hastily behind him, how he's getting closer and closer, three steps two steps one - 

She's right in front of him, a whole sixteen years after he began dreaming of her and the other six, she's finally here and something just falls into place. Not everything - he has seven, after all - but  _something._ He wonders how he ever thought the world made sense before this, because it feels like he was walking around blind and deaf and all of a sudden he can see and hear. He's pretty sure he won't be able to make fun of Felix for losing his head completely on seeing Vicky because he's standing there like an idiot in an exact mockery of Felix on the plane. How could he do anything else? There are no words for this moment. He was asleep and now he has finally awoken. It is the first day of his life. 

"You must be Felix," she's saying - not to him. Wolfgang snaps out of it to see the girl shaking Felix's hand with a grin. "Wolfgang dreams of you quite a bit, it was like seeing eight lives instead of seven." Her smile softens. "Thank you for being there with him when none of us could be."

"How do you know my name?" Wolfgang asks, sounding stupid even to himself. "I don't know - any names. Any of you." 

"I saw it on one of your worksheets at school, once. I pronounced it wrong for quite a while." She laughs, and the sound is like music to his ears. "I'm Kala. It's so good to finally meet you."

"Kala," Wolfgang breathes shakily, because for him the world is still spinning, and suddenly it crashes down on him,  _really,_ how awful it has been for him up till now. To live in a loveless home, with no mother and a father who only sees - saw - him as another tool in his inventory, no friends but Felix, no future but a criminal one if he had swallowed those pills every night. Wolfgang realises just how much he owes to his seven soul mates for giving him something to hang on to, for knowing, deep inside, that he was loved from the beginning. They have saved his life over and over, they don't even know, and he doesn't realise he's crying until Kala pulls him into a hug and Felix pats him on the shoulder.

"It's okay, you made it, you made it, they won't be able to touch you again," Kala is saying, and Wolfgang just closes his eyes and breathes and thinks:  _I'm home._

 

 

Kala's apparently explained the whole situation to her family, because when she appears back home with two strange white men in tow her mother just smiles welcomingly and ushers them into the living room. "You must be starved after the plane ride," she says, and Felix and Wolfgang make some weak protests vis-a-vis not wanting to inconvenience her, but she sits them down at the dining table and calls her husband. "Sanyam, these boys need some proper food in them after their flight."

"It's eleven at night," Kala's father grumbles, but lets his wife bustle him into the kitchen anyway. Wolfgang winces. "Really, Kala, your dad doesn't have to - "

"Oh, let them," Kala answers briskly. "Let's talk important matters. You and me need to go and find the other six. Felix, what are _you_ going to do?"

"I'm going back to Munich," Felix answers promptly, and Wolfgang nearly chokes. He briefly recaps what happened on the plane with Vicky to Kala, and explains to both of them that it turns out Vicky lives in Munich and he's going back to be with her. 

"It's far enough from Berlin," he says gently to Wolfgang, noticing his friend's worry. "And I've already told Vicky I need to do some travelling first. Let the heat die down on us. I'm going to see if I can - travel with her. She's a stewardess after all." 

Wolfgang takes this in quietly, then turns to look at Kala proper. "You want to go and find the others?" 

Kala meets his gaze, unflinching. "We have to," she answers simply. "They're our soul mates. We will find them, no matter how long it takes. The world will lead us to them." 

She says it like it's that  _easy_ , but there are so many things to consider. Wolfgang isn't sure how much Kala knows about where their other six soul mates are - he certainly doesn't know much. They might be destined for each other but it has already taken more than a decade for him and Felix to find a single person, and the world is so big. Where do they even start? How will they have the money? How long will it take them? Could he really spend his whole life doing nothing but seeking out their soul mates? His father's words from when he was just a child come rushing back to him -  _too many people get caught up in what they see when they sleep at night,_ and  _live their whole lives focused on nothing but a_   _stranger,_ and _there is more to you than who you are meant to spend your life with._ He's not even sure who  _he_ is, yet, not really, because his life has been defined by fear and loneliness and these seven lives for so long he isn't sure what else there is - and yet, and yet, when he pushes all of that aside, all Wolfgang can think is:  _finally, at last, yes._

From across the dining table, Kala reaches over and links her fingers through his, and existential crisis or no Wolfgang is hard-pressed to deny how right it feels to have her hand in his. He manages to smile. "I don't know anyone's name." 

Kala smiles back. "You dream of the girl who lives in the snowy country? I can't be completely sure, but I think her name is Riley Blue."

"That's a start," Felix says, bumping Wolfgang's shoulder. "You're going to find them, Wolfgang. You are." 

There could be so much standing in between him and his other six soul mates, a whole world, a whole lifetime. 

But this is what he wants. What he needs. Who he  _is._ And if that is all he is - all he can ever be - then so be it, he will be it with all of his heart. 

And more than that - above all, above everything, Wolfgang  _knows._

He squeezes Kala's hand - a benediction, a promise. "Let's go."


End file.
